Self-consistent simulation of plasma scenarios for ITER using a combination of 1.5D transport codes and free-boundary equilibrium codes

Self-consistent transport simulation of ITER scenarios is a very important tool for the exploration of the operational space and for scenario optimization. It also provides an assessment of the compatibility of developed scenarios (which include fast transient events) with machine constraints, in particular with the poloidal field coil system, heating and current drive, fuelling and particle and energy exhaust systems. This paper discusses results of predictive modelling of all reference ITER scenarios and variants using two suites of linked transport and equilibrium codes. The first suite consisting of the 1.5D core/2D SOL code JINTRAC (Wiesen S. et al 2008 JINTRAC-JET modelling suite JET ITC-Report) and the free-boundary equilibrium evolution code CREATE-NL (Albanese R. et al 2003 ISEM 2003 (Versailles, France); Albanese R. et al 2004 Nucl. Fusion 44 999), was mainly used to simulate the inductive D-T reference Scenario-2 with fusion gain Q = 10 and its variants in H, D and He (including ITER scenarios with reduced current and toroidal field). The second suite of codes was used mainly for the modelling of hybrid and steady-state ITER scenarios. It combines the 1.5D core transport code CRONOS (Artaud J.F. et al 2010 Nucl. Fusion 50 043001) and the free-boundary equilibrium evolution code DINA-CH (Kim S.H. et al 2009 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 51 105007).